Tuesday, June 28, 2005

electrified pool of water blog

A little poem that popped into my head this morning:Moneypenny, roaming on the banks of the Thames,Sighs beneath her scented breath, “James, James, James….”

The critics speak!New York Times: WAR OF THE WORLD is “reasonably entertaining.”

That’ll get the throngs back to the theatres!

Here we go again.From Reuters: “A Louisiana woman has sued restaurant company Applebee's International Inc. , charging that she found a severed fingertip in her salad.”

That’ll get the throngs back to the theatres!

When will this show up on CSI?From Reuters: “A young mother found at the scene of a car crash near Tokyo in which her husband and infant son were killed had already been dead for at least a day before the accident happened….”

Oh, shut up dept. Responding to Tom Cruise’s outburst last Friday, the American Psychiatric Association has released a statement: "Rigorous, published, peer-reviewed research clearly demonstrates that treatment (of mental illness) works. It is unfortunate that in the face of this remarkable scientific and clinical progress that a small number of individuals and groups persist in questioning its legitimacy."

Dead Chickens 1BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium plans to stop Boy Scouts from slaughtering chickens and other small animals at summer camp, despite Scout leaders' defense of the practice as a lesson in wilderness survival.

The Health Ministry said in a statement issued Monday that one Scout group had refused to stop teaching its lads how to carry out the bloody task even after complaints from parents.

"These kids have to be taught how to kill an animal in order to feed themselves," the ministry quoted one of the group's respresentatives as saying.

However, the ministry took the view that the Scouts learned nothing from using animals in this way.

Dead Chickens 2In today’s Wall Street Journal I leaned of a Dutch chicken farmer, Harm Kiezebrink. As a child, he learned to kill male chickens (because they don’t produce eggs, and are too scrawny to eat). As an adult, he is now much in demand as a consultant in the mass killing of chickens, as a hedge against the spread of Avian influenza.

Apparently, he has a machine, called the AED-100, “which kills about 10,000 birds an hour, catching them by the feet and dragging their heads through an electrified pool of water.”

I want one. Please? For Christmas? Or at least donate one, in my name, to the Belgian Boy Scouts?

Finally, a boring yet oddly fascinating story from the Dakotas, a boring yet oddly fascinating region in its own right. From AP: Woman Seeks to Return Steak Knife to N.D.

A Washington state woman is seeking to return a steak knife to this city [Jamestown]. Connie Hilty, of Richland, Wash., said she found the knife after her mother died five years ago.

It has the words "Farmer's Elevator Company, Harry Nitschke, Jud, North Dakota" inscribed on the blade.

"Because it had someone's name on it, I didn't want to pitch it," Hilty said. "It's in really nice condition, and I would just be glad to turn it over to whoever it might belong to or their family."

Hilty said she has no idea how her mother got the knife. The family lived in South Dakota when she was born but later moved to Washington, she said.

"I know we didn't have family in North Dakota," she said.

Hilty said she knows the importance of a family heirloom. "I just think things like that are really important to family," she said.

And to the never-ending process of killing chickens. Oh wait. I just made up that last part.

3 Comments:

Long story short I was just minding my own bidness and buying electronics and doing rudimentary IT for this company when all of a sudden we were bought by a very large chicken producing concern. (HINT: This company's name is the same as Robin Givens ex-husband, the financially and emotionally troubled ex-heavyweight champion.) The high sheriffs would come up from Arkansas and completely unpromtped,usually over lunch, tell us about the machine you mentioned plus several of its rivals.

These machines are not foolproof.

That's why every plant needed a trained chicken killer.

OK - after having said that how many of you just saw the image of Billy Bob Thorton as Sling Blade pass though your head?

So, there's this high tech mass chicken killing machine that requires a backup chicken killer to handle the runoff? Actually Billy Bob didn't go through my head so much as Christian Bale. Some really well-dressed insouciant Brit, lounging on the side, reading English newspapers, until the alarm goes up. Then he springs into action! With a silence side arm. Walther PPK? Why would your company be bought by a chicken producer? Is the chicken producer diversifying, or you? Or maybe Tyrone Power from NIGHTMARE ALLEY? This would be great job for geeks! Carney geeks, not the new hip geeks.

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